CompuServe Messages

> Many software developers and publishers…often over-look the needs of customers < Rich, from the little I've seen, I couldn't agree more. I developed a personal FoxPro application several years ago to help me select movies to rent. When, for example, I want a "good" western movie, it will print me a listing of all the western movies in my database that I haven't seen whose average of several critics ratings is equal to or greater than three stars. And the list that it produces contains the movies' attributes and is sorted by year (newest first) within the average critics rating (best first). The movie store folks think I'm crazy when I show up with my list. <g> But, I don't waste time browsing through shelves and shelves of movies in whatever order they decided to display them. And, I don't bring home many duds. So when I read about Cinemania, I said wonderful — 19,000 movies! (Obviously my movies database is quite, quite limited.) But what a disappointment. IMO, it's essentially "book technology" on a CD-ROM with some fancy graphic gizmos. The authors assumed that their "customers" already know the title of the movie that they want to research, and set up the CD like Maltin's books. I know it will let you specify filters, but you can't even get a list on the screen that contains the movies' attributes — much less print one. And, you can't sort anything. The "Movies' Titles" are the "answers" that I, the customer, am looking for — not my search and retrieval keys. I can retrieve movie ratings by title using any of my movie books! And, I don't even need a computer. Anyway, one guy's opinion. > If you can create some solutions that will improve the ultimate access to data, you may have a winner! < Know anyone who wants to hire me? I'm experienced and available. <g> Bill